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Comment by laurieg | Hacker News Reader

Cash is still king in Japan. I only know of 1 restaurant that is cashless in my town, and you're much more likely to find somewhere that is cash only.

Even though cash is king, there are some real oddities. The new 500 yen coin that is hard to use is in machines is one. The other being the 2000 yen note. The normal denominations are 1000, 5000, 10,000. 2000 yen notes are very rare. For some reason, they seem to hand them out almost exclusively to tourists as they enter the country. Imagine if you gave Scottish five pound notes to everyone coming into the UK in Dover?

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I'm not sure where you live, but cash is certainly no longer king in Tokyo. It's still alive and there are plenty of people that prefer it, but it's used for far less than half the transactions I see everyday. And I'll go months forgetting to refill the just-in-case cash in my wallet and never run into a situation where I would have needed it.

Yeah, I’ll second your comment. Just went back to visit friends for a few weeks and was up down down the country from Tokyo to Naha, almost never needed cash.

10 years ago was a different story, maybe. Nowadays Japan’s pretty digital when it comes to money.

Chase gave me a stack of ¥2000 notes when I pre-obtained some cash in the States before a trip. That caused some confusion when I got there and tried to buy a suica card. And I didn't even realize what was going on until a local coworker was surprised at me having them.

Travelex at airports will also throw these at you. They’re amusing to have on hand.

I could see two explanations:

* They ended up with vaults full of them because domestic banks didn't want them. I understand this was the fate of a fair amount of US 50-cent and $1 coins: they migrated to 'dollarized' economies like Ecuador.

* They figure they're being helpful-- the $20 note is the most common in US cash commerce, and the $50 is very uncommon, so they figured giving people a note worth about $20 is convenient.

When I've ordered notes from the bank, they usually loaded up with the largest notes (lots of CAD100 or GBP50 notes) with just 100 or 200 units divided into smaller notes.

Uhh no it isn't. I haven't used cash in months.

The 2,000 Yen note is mentioned in the article.

Regarding the coin, I wonder if drilling a hole in them would get them to work in the vending machines.

I had the same thought! I also wonder if it's legal... I doubt it is.

Yeah, when you request for Japanese bills in banks abroad, you can select the 2000 yen one.

Or a $2 note in the US.

[edit]

Or a $1 coin for that matter.

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